Big names and bigger dumps. Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps reported Monday that more than $30 million worth of Melania Meme (MELANIA), a meme coin linked to U.S. First Lady Melania Trump, have been moved and “quietly sold.”
On-chain analysis revealed the Solana-based tokens were taken from community funds, and neither the project team nor “launch strategist” Hayden Davis has yet offered any explanation for the movement of the assets.
In total, 50 million MELANIA tokens were funneled to wallet “Cq2Tj6,” then split across multiple addresses.
More than $3 million was sent to centralized exchanges, two new $6 million positions were opened, and $500,000 has already been sold, Bubblemaps said on X, formerly Twitter.
5/ Reminder: team wallets hold 92% of the supply
The damage isn’t done yet
We’ll keep monitoring and share any new updateshttps://t.co/T8ui6a9xXV pic.twitter.com/kCFDU0kiPJ
— Bubblemaps (@bubblemaps) April 7, 2025
“No one from the MELANIA team has addressed this. Not the movements. Not the selling,” the firm said. Decrypt has reached out to Hayden Davis through his brother Gideon, and will update this story if and when it receives a response.
The lack of transparency follows an earlier $2 million sell-off reported last week, using single-sided liquidity, “the same tactic” employed by Davis during the LIBRA token collapse in February, Bubblemaps added.
Davis, who previously admitted to launching both MELANIA and LIBRA, has been linked to a broader pattern of pump and dump style meme coins.
With team wallets controlling 92% of the MELANIA supply, retail investors are left exposed.
In collaboration with YouTuber Coffeezilla, Bubblemaps connected Davis to a network of wallets moving funds between MELANIA, LIBRA, and other tokens.
Bubblemaps speculated that Davis “may have seen the recent drop in attention as a window to quietly move funds while fewer people were watching.”
Dominika Stobiecka, co-founder of token compliance platform Toku, previously shared with Decrypt that this kind of behavior is akin to traditional insider trading, and it’s already illegal.
“The system is built on the principle that even if you’re an outsider—meaning you don’t have access to non-public, internal information—you can still invest safely, Stobiecka said. “For the market to function, people must believe in its fairness.”
Stobiecka warned that insider behavior in crypto isn’t just unethical, saying it risks turning markets into a “rigged game” where “retail investors lose confidence, participation drops, and the entire system suffers.”
The MELANIA token, launched in January after Trump’s inauguration as President, briefly surged past $12 before crashing, mirroring the trajectory of the U.S. President’s own Official Trump (TRUMP) meme coin, which peaked above $72 before suffering a similar collapse.
MELANIA now trades at $0.5488, a massive 95.4% drop from its launch-day high. TRUMP, meanwhile, sits at $7.82, marking an 89.1% decline from its peak, CoinGecko data shows.
“Crypto can’t have it both ways,” Stobiecka said, noting how true legitimacy means “clear rules and real enforcement, not a market that looks like a rigged casino.”
With MELANIA wallets still offloading supply and no response from the team, Bubblemaps has issued a blunt warning: “The damage isn’t done yet.”
Edited by Stacy Elliott.
